Study says most owners find electric vehicle range satisfactory today

A recent research has uncovered that 87 percent of US drivers consider the electric vehicle range to be sufficient – with the benchmark being a 2013 Nissan Leaf.

One of the major issues with electric cars today is the so-called range anxiety. Just ask anyone if they would be willing to part ways with their conventional car and see what’s the first problem coming to mind – driving range. This is because people fear they would remain stranded somewhere with no recharging outlets or stuck waiting for hours to juice up the battery. But we heard of a guy that was the first to use a Tesla Model S for taxi duties (and has no Supercharger available close by) in North America and he recently turned 100.000 miles on the odometer. And according to a new study published by Nature Energy, this might not be an actual factor for the actual owners. This is because close to all US commuters’ daily driving duties would be met even with today’s electric cars.

The researchers took data from the U.S. National Household Travel Survey to estimate basic travel distances and then benchmarked them against the driving range of their electric car of choice – an EPA-rated 75 miles per charge Nissan Leaf from 2013. Based on their calculations about 87 percent of daily driving scenarios would be met by the Leaf, as people often drive less than that on a regular basis. The new segment of long-range electric cars meanwhile would satisfy 98 percent of needs – and that took into consideration the 2016 Leaf that goes for 107 miles per charge.